


Dancing Like The Living

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven bells, seven things that happened as the Old Kingdom was restored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing Like The Living

**Author's Note:**

> Written for frek

_Saraneth_

Within a few short weeks, the place where Sabriel grew up has become another country. She lies in bed and senses the Dead; they are walking across the Wall, they are passing the Perimeter Zone.. They're coming, she tells the living; they're coming, and no one hears, except Touchstone, who sits beside her and listens and waits silently in life.

When she is lucid again, the other girls are either healed or buried. Together with the other Charter Mages, she helps to perform that ancient rite that must be performed here so close to the Wall. Marks for cleansing, purity and fire are spun together and deployed with a single gesture on each of the bodies interred. "Go safely," Sabriel says, and all at once, she _is_ Abhorsen. "Go in peace."

"May you never return," adds Touchstone. She draws back and does not flinch when his hand slips into hers. 

That night, Miss Umbrade calls Sabriel into her office. "Really," she says severely, "I must express my displeasure at your carryings--on. Prefect or not, Sabriel, I must protest! The boy is a fool!"

Sabriel is a clever girl but has absolutely no idea what the woman is talking about. She only begins to understand some time later, when she has heard the rumours that percolate through the school even in a time like this. Especially in a time like this, perhaps; saved from death, the girls are living with as much gusto as possible. When she tells them she is shortly to leave them, she assures them the rumours are true.

When they cross into the Old Kingdom many days later, she asks, "What is your real name?" 

"You called me Touchstone."

Saraneth is still broken, cracked; and yet they have been bound together.

*

_Kibeth_

"You're beautiful," says Touchstone.

"You're lying," says Sabriel.

"I'm not," -- two, three, four Ð "I never lie." 

"You do." She twirls and laughs Ð two, three, four Ð and her heels tap out the rhythm on the polished surface. "You just did."

They are dancing in Belisaere across a moonlit floor, with Charter magic glowing in small lights around the room and reflecting in the hundred of eyes looking upon the new King and his Abhorsen Queen. One, two, three, four, step forwards, step back, and he twirls her and dips her and her laughter can be heard like the sound of the bells. "I'm not designed to be beautiful. I was in Death as a small child," she tells him. "It's why I burn in the noonday sun."

He kisses her, and the coronation party, the hundreds of well--wishers, the thousands of people all over the Old Kingdom Ð they are forgotten. "I love you," he says seriously. "I hope you don't mind."

The corners of her lips curve upwards. "At Wyverley they said I should abstain till I'm thirty. Hope _you_ don't mind."

"Tease."

And he picks her up, to gasps of awe and amusement, and carries her across the moonlit floor, her red dress bright in the light of the Charter. "Say goodnight to your people, Abhorsen," he murmurs as her head falls back on his shoulder. 

She barely has time to sing out, "Goodnight!" before they are through a door and round a corner, alone together and still moving to a rhythm. They get up one flight of stairs before she squirms and he drops her with a muffled exclamation. 

"That was supposed to be a romantic gesture," he says aggrievedly. 

Sabriel grabs his hand and pulls him up the steps with her, heels tapping in time (two, three, four). "You're a king," she tells him (one, two). "That's romantic enough." And before he can reply, they are through the door and rolling over (three, four) onto the bed.

She giggles as he pulls her down towards him. "The dress! Don't harm the dress!"

"I wouldn't. It's a beautiful dress." He concentrates, waves one hand, gleaming momentarily with Charter marks, and true to his word, the dress is unharmed. It is a red puddle on the floor.

She stands there, hands on hips, not self--conscious at all. "Looks like you don't lie, then."

"Looks like it." 

This time, when he pulls she doesn't resist, and as she rolls on top of him the rhythm continues. One, two Ð she whispers in his ear, "I don't mind that you love me" Ð three, four Ð "because I rather think I love you too." Two, three, two three four, and she feels the Charter marks, for making, for breaking, for unravelling and coming together anew, one two three four, and a master mark spun for love.

She falls asleep only slowly, lulled by the steady, dimly--heard throb of Touchstone's heart behind her head, together with the soft cool Old Kingdom night.

She even dreams in rhythm, and it is in the dark time before dawn that the dream's drumbeats become heavy pounding at the door, loud and deeply unpleasant. She shifts and Touchstone calls, "Who's there?"

The door is pushed open and dim Charter light leaks through, illuminating the scared face of a servant. "Abhorsen," she says breathlessly. Sabriel is on her feet and pulling clothes and bandoleer over her head before the door has closed behind her.

The servant leads her to another one who leads her to another one, who leads her outside the gates to a man with wild eyes and a face haggard from fear. The stream has run dry, he says, and he has run miles for help.

Later, Sabriel makes the Dead march. In the waters of the First Precinct, she draws Kibeth and rings it in a figure--of--eight. Its many notes blur into a single, infectious tune, making her own feet twitch but making the Dead turn tail and step in time through the Gate, there to fall through all the others and die a final death. The bell, the Walker, does good work, and the people are saved and the job is well done, but although the Dead dance, Sabriel knows it isn't the same. No--one dances like the living. 

*

_Ranna_

Ellimere was a good baby. Ellimere is always good; now she is three, she behaves with all the solemn dignity of a princess and gives no trouble at all. It is the boy--child who gives the trouble. He cries so much and for so long, his wails so pitiful and haunting that Sabriel cannot block them from her mind, and even when she steps into the river they are the only thing she hears. 

There are servants to help, Touchstone tells her; she should rest, she should sleep, but there is no time, there is no time, she has laid down her bells these nine months past and the Dead are rising and all the time Sam cries.

Ellimere wants to help. In her little--girl way, she pulls at Sabriel's skirts and follows, expertly handing over blankets and bottles as her mother reaches distractedly out. But even she goes to bed eventually, tucked up by a maid, thumb stuck firmly in mouth as she dreams. Touchstone has gone to Corvere, and the Abhorsen Sabriel paces restlessly below a window, baby held to her hip. He is still crying. 

She moves slowly from one end of the window to the other, and presently her eyes rest on the bandolier on the table. She has scarcely touched it in weeks, and the Old Kingdom is making its slow, languorous way into summer. The streams, swift and swollen with meltwater when the baby was born, are falling day by day. 

She paces up and down once more, once more again, before she lets her feet break the rhythm and lifts the bells. 

"My baby," she whispers, kisses his head, and swings Ranna. Like the baby, the bell is tiny, and Sleepbringer brings sleep. 

In the morning the Abhorsen rises and leaves a sleeping child, bearing bells and sword and guilt every step of the way.

*

_Dyrim_

Standing here, just beyond the checkpoint, Sabriel can see down towards Bain, and the streets she walked through as a schoolgirl.

When she was in the first form at Wyverley College, she was asked by Magistrix Greenwood to act as mentor for a new girl, fresh from the south reaches of Ancelstierre with the darkened skin of a Southerling and a pair of bright, inquisitive eyes.

Sabriel answered her questions with easy good humour Ð _yes, Bain is the closest town, we go there at weekends, classes are from nine until four, most people go onto university from here, yes you can go with your friends_ Ð and it was only that easiest, simplest of questions that flummoxed her. 

"What's your name?" asked Sulyn.

"Sabriel," she answered.

"Your last name," Sulyn persisted.

Sabriel paused, smiled. "I don't have one," she said. "I come from the Old Kingdom."

That was during the time of the Interregnum, and Sulyn said, half--mocking, "What, are you royalty or something?"

Sabriel merely looked at her and said, "Not quite."

After that they were friends, of a sort; opposites attracted, and when the wind blew from the north they grew closer, taking comfort in each other's differences. Sabriel showed her what that wind could do, tried in vain to communicate the depth and strength of the Charter as the electricity failed around them. In her turn, when the wind blew from the south, Sulyn had magic of her own to present; she had a small radio that crackled and fizzled into life, and she showed Sabriel how to turn the dial and scan. In the evenings when they played swinging dance music and jazz, the two of them caught each others' hands and whirled around until they had to lie down from laughing. 

Six years' practice made them experts in finding good things to listen to; there were programmes other than the music ones and one night, unable to sleep, they began listening to a radio play, the voices faintly muffled and crackling but still audible. They resolved to listen to the second part the following week, and waited on tenterhooks to hear whodunit.

Twenty years later Sabriel is still waiting. She walks now within the shadow of the Wall, listening to the wind--flutes that hold back the Greater Dead, and thinks strange, incongruous thoughts about the story she never heard to the end, because that was the week she set out across the Old Kingdom. Sulyn survived Kerrigor but was removed from Wyverley by frightened parents, called back to the south and away from the dangerous grey presence of the Old Kingdom.

Ellimere is thriving at Wyverley, Sabriel knows. She is captain of the hockey team and possibly the netball team too, a good all--rounder and a thorough credit to the school. But Ellimere was born in the Old Kingdom, heiress to the royal bloodline, and Sabriel wonders if she pays any heed to the music and motion of the world behind the Wall, knowing all the time, as she must, that she is consort and ruler of a land where such things mean nothing. 

On the other side of the Wall, it will soon be night. The crossing scouts recognise the woman with the bells and pull her into one of their huts for a cup of lethal, murky tea. She drinks it gratefully, and as she puts down the mug her attention is caught by one of the youngest soldiers, bright--eyed and with suddenly glowing mark. "Best be getting off, ma'am," he says seriously. "It's late."

She nods and thanks him, and they let her cross the boundary. She turns away from the darkness and faces the warm autumn afternoon of the Old Kingdom, walking away from the wind--flutes that sing as silently as she remembers. She must be home by nightfall. 

*

_Mosrael_

Touchstone and Sabriel were once too late to stop the breaking of a Charter Stone. Even as they rushed forwards, the deed was done; the Charter Mage, an innocent with unsullied mark, died as his blood dripped downwards through the grooves in the Stone. It broke below him and his body was thrown to hard ground. Her sense of his death was enough to make Sabriel reel and stagger with the shock.

That feeling, that muted grief and horror, is a sudden close memory when Sam, small ten--year--old Sam, asks, "May I come with you?" and she knows he does not mean the short journey to Cloven Crest but the endless journey down the river. She shakes her head without even thinking about it, but the chill around her heart stays with her.

That night, Touchstone slips into bed beside her, the warmth of his body mingling with that of the furs below her head, and whispers, clear and still: "The walker is choosing his path."

She wants to cry and he holds her, but the choice has been made. In the morning she is calm, dresses Sam warmly and takes his hand as she walks towards the boundary. He walks with her through water that is waist--deep, fighting his way against the current while she watches over him. Saraneth is in her hand and ready.

She knows that to make this journey without reason is folly, but to bring a child into danger is worse folly still, so she takes him only to see what creatures, if any, dare lurk this close to life. The distant roar that is water pouring through the First Gate lurks below her thoughts, as it always does, but it has no effect on Sam. He lets his fingers drift through the chilly surface of the water, seemingly fascinated by the droplets trickling downwards; he drags his feet to hear the sounds they make on the riverbed of Death; his eyes flick from side to side, hawk--like, to see the distant blurring that marks this river as unearthly, and wonders if he could walk sideways and cheat Death. Sabriel realises belatedly that she is the one who is afraid.

Afterwards, when they have emerged back into Life to find the diamond still burning brightly and the sunlight warm around them, the Charter Stone that was broken drifts back into her mind. After the man's body was cleansed and the necromancer bound, there came the difficult time; the time when the King and Abhorsen shed their blood over the stone and made it whole. The Charter was unforgiving and the pain was blinding, but there was the moment of clarity in the end, when the Stone was once again dancing with marks for strength and health and purity, that made the Old Kingdom throb to the beat of her heart.

Sam is sitting up and clearing the frost of Death from his eyelashes, and she feels it again. They are both part of it, she and her heir to the land they were born to serve.

*

_Belgaer_

They are, Sabriel supposes, technically politicians. They serve as representatives of the Old Kingdom when Ancelstierre debates foreign policy, which is often. But unlike the members of the Moot, who cannot walk the streets for fear of being besieged by indignant constituents, the King and Abhorsen can roam unmolested. They are wandering the streets of Corvere when Sabriel pauses outside a shop window, motions for Touchstone to stay where he is and disappears inside.

Five minutes later she returns triumphant, bearing a package, and a small smile creeps across his face. "What did you buy?" he asks, sing--song.

She unwraps it to show him. "A radio." As he takes it from her, she adds: "Clockwork. It should work right up to the Perimeter. It's for Sam."

"For you, more like," he says shrewdly, thinking about how it works. She understands far better than he does about how interlocking gears and teeth can take the strength of a human hand and make it into crackling music. "By the time it reaches Sam, it will just be a mess of metal parts."

"He likes those, too," she says mildly, and he is forced to agree. 

By the time they reach the crossing point, the Moot have argued themselves into a stupor and the radio is crackling but still working, broadcasting the sounds of a world that gets increasingly far away. Sabriel holds a faint hope it will not fade as they enter the Old Kingdom, but they have taken only two steps before even the static dies away, leaving them with silence that remains no matter how much she turns the handle. 

But safe in Belisaere, Sam is delighted with the gift. Sabriel gives it to him after explaining what it is and why it is inactive, and he turns the handle several times, shakes the casing and peers into the gaps in the tiny speakers. Watching him, Sabriel realises suddenly that he has never heard a radio; they have never taken him across the border with them. She leaves, pleased that her small offering has brought him pleasure.

Two days later, she hears a screech, unearthly and terrifying, drifting down the steps from Sam's workroom. She takes the stairs two at a time, her hands already moving to her bells and her mind full of nothing but Sam. 

She crashes through the door of the room to find him seated at his bench, engrossed in something. "Sam," she begins, and hears the screech again. Unmuffled by distance, she hears it for what it is Ð static. "Sam?"

He glances up. "Look at this," he tells her without preamble. "I think it may work this time."

The screech sounds again, but fades quicker and for a moment, Sabriel thinks she hears voices. They increase in volume until she realises she is listening to a faint, severely distorted version of the Ancelstierre radio news. "How did you do it?"

Proudly, he shows her. The radio has been altered significantly since she saw it last, but the most noticeable difference is the presence of two small metal objects, one hanging off each side. Sam taps them and she hears the clear, flute--like sounds. "Dyrim," Sabriel says. "And Belgaer."

"Speaker and Thinker," Sam says, still proudly. "I thought I could make them channel the energy in the same way as the crank handle. Because" Ð and he is warming to the topic, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm Ð "some things do work both sides of the Wall. Human hands, for one thing. It's just a different method of doing the same thing. I'm still working on it, you know. It's not nearly perfect yet. I want to try out a few more things."

"You do that," says Sabriel, smiling, and quietly takes her leave.

Touchstone meets her at the door. "Tell me," he says with something indefinable in his voice, "did you tell him it normally takes a practised Charter Mage, one with all the requisite skills and nerves of iron, a week to cast each of the necromancers' bells?"

"No," says Sabriel. "I didn't tell him."

Touchstone nods. "You're planning to send him to Wyverley in the autumn, aren't you?"

Sabriel nods, wondering how she will manage without him. Somehow she knows, as surely as she knows to breathe, that he will leave, cross the Wall, and that when he is gone all will be silent once more.

*

_Astarael_

The Dead are upon them now. Sabriel has been running for what seems like hours, because when one Hand is bound five others rise in its place. The necromancer's body is somewhere far behind, but it does not matter; his spirit sits in the waters of the First Precinct and sends his servants before him. Sabriel's ears are ringing as loud as the bells.

She reaches the water just as the first Dead things emerge from the trees, reflected light picking out glistening bone and gaping holes in flesh. Touchstone seems ready to launch himself into the Ratterlin, but she knows there is nothing to save them that way. No boat is ever moored here, no stepping--stones grace the surface; the current will save them from the Dead, but they will be carried in its furious wake, pulled down deep and thrown at rocks simply to exchange this river for another.

The first of their pursuers begins the climb down the ridge, uncaring of its rapidly disintegrating fingers. It will not come within a foot of the water, but standing so close to the edge makes them prisoners of the Dead.

Sabriel's hands are on the bandoleer. She pauses for one moment and pulls Touchstone towards her, clinging to his warmth, and gives him a sudden, bruising kiss. "I love you," she says clearly. Her gaze is steady. "If you love me, you will run from here as fast as you can with your fingers as deep in your ears as you can."

"Sabriel..." he begins, but she holds up one hand. He bows his head, understanding. "Abhorsen." 

And then he is gone, making his careful way along the very edge of the land. Sabriel gives him a few seconds to get away, and then her hands are on the bells. 

There is no art to ringing Astarael, for it serves one purpose and one only. She draws it, swings it once and jumps. She feels a desire she has felt once before, to cut the traces of existence and be carried, joyfully, into the waters of oblivion. The sound is plaintively, hauntingly beautiful, and somehow slow; her flight is stilled so she hovers high in the air, and when she falls, it is into the water of a different river. She has given in.

The Dead have been carried along with her. They are pushed under the surface, where they do not splutter because they do not breathe, and while they, too, are being pushed onto a journey, they disappear from her vision. Bound by the bell, they do not matter any more. Touchstone is not here and Sabriel does not worry.

She is not wading through the water as a necromancer is wont to do. Instead, she is moving gently with the current, and Astarael still sounds at the periphery of her consciousness, taking her forwards. She is already beyond the First Gate, the waterfall barely a distraction, and the Second Gate pulls her down but she does not drown. She is not touched by the beasts of the dark, nor burnt by the flames, and her sword, the Abhorsen's sword, hangs loosely at her side. She is not Abhorsen, she thinks warmly, vaguely; the Abhorsen journeys into Death but is not of it, and at the full moon the wind--flutes will begin to fail. 

The last precinct is the beautiful one. Sabriel has never walked this far. The river is now a covered floodplain, a sheet of shimmering water that stretches to a dim grey horizon. The bells make no sound as she falls to her knees, then onto her back, floating on five inches of water with the constellations of the Ninth Precinct laid out above her head. She looks at them and looks at them, taking them in, letting them take her in. She would drift off to the sky if she could, now; she would leave the river forever and find peace.

But Astarael still holds her, and its voice fades into words heard only by a necromancer. _It is not your time, Abhorsen._

She stands up, weary and weak, and brushes the water off her. She is Sabriel, queen, lover, mother, Abhorsen, and this is not her time. The bell is silent, and she walks back against the flow, step by step and gate by gate, back to life.

Far downstream, where the Ratterlin becomes soft enough for children to play, her body washes on shore. When she wakes, Touchstone is casting the Charter Marks for healing, warmth and sleep, golden and glowing and spun together with love, carrying her across the Old Kingdom they have rebuilt with their blood.

 


End file.
